The Reckless
by thequeenofokay
Summary: Cammie and Zach fell apart years ago, and they haven't seen each other since, but simply tried to forget. -oneshot-


**the reckless**

* * *

_And if you're still breathing, you're the lucky ones._

_'Cause most of us are heaving through corrupted lungs._

* * *

It's like falling. Like being taught how to climb the stairs just so you can fall out the top floor window. She had learnt how to be the Chameleon; the spy, and now she's tumbling, in so deep that none of it matters anymore. She's just going to keep falling, because falling isn't that different from flying.

He went with nothing more than a goodbye, and Cammie tried not to look back, to give in to that temptation. When she does look back, all she'll see are all the mistakes she'd made, and realize how broken her world was. Where it all went wrong.

She learned how to be the Chameleon, and now that is all that she is. All that she has. She doesn't think of him. She doesn't think of him as she and Bex take down rogue arms dealers in Budapest and corrupt ambassadors in Rome. She doesn't think about him when she and Macey diffuse a bomb on the 52nd floor or infiltrate a governor's party to track down a terrorist organisation, or as she helps Liz hack the database of a treacherous former-CIA agent. She doesn't think of him at all.

But she didn't have any backup that mission. It was just her, and a dead comms unit. Alone, in what reminded her far too much of the Tombs.

She sees the gunman, and there's no way to run, no chance of escape. She pulls her pistol and fires as she falls to the ground.

* * *

_And if you're still bleeding, you're the lucky ones._

_'Cause most of our feelings, they are dead and they are gone._

* * *

There's a bullet but no blood, and for a while, she wonders if it did hit her. The hole is there, gaping in her side, but she's fine. She feels fine. Her attacker lies in a pool of crimson a few metres away, and she's alone. She thought she knew best, she thought she could do it on her own, but she's going to die alone like her father.

She doesn't care. She hasn't lived yet, but she doesn't care. Twenty-something and gone. Nobody will find her - she knows that much. She'll just be bones, oh so far underneath the earth. Too far gone for anyone to find her. Her only company would be the maggots in her skull, the insects on her bones. She'll be just another fallen soldier, a name that isn't quite remembered, just faded lettering on a memorial, a life that's nothing more than a blurry memory.

He finds her.

Cammie doesn't know how, and she doesn't know why. She just sees his face through the darkness that's quickly approaching and wonders if she's hallucinating.

Zach sits there, years older than last time she saw him. He bandages her side, but then he just sits there, beside her, in the caves. Maybe it's just a second, but it feels like a lifetime as the trickles of blood soak through her bandages. She just stares, her heart gone, gone like her body would have been without him. She doesn't know what that feeling is; the ghost of love, the ghost of teenagers madly in love and perfectly unwilling to admit it.

They never did admit it. Not to each other. She knew she loved him, but love was stupid when she'd seen how it treated her mother, how she cried when she thought no one could see her. Cammie didn't want that - to be the one left behind. They went their separate ways after graduation. She tried not to miss him, she numbed her heart to the pain, replacing it with bitterness. But as she dies she knows that she didn't succeed.

* * *

_And if you're in love, then you are the lucky one. _

_'Cause most of us are bitter over someone._

* * *

Cammie's eyes flicker open. She sees white, the type of sickly washed-out white that gives her the clear indication that she's in a hospital. She sits up, and feels a dull ache in her side. She expects to see him, but he isn't there. Just Bex, talking on the phone. She's standing at the opposite side on the ward, looking out the window. She laughs, and Cammie knows in an instant who it is. She takes after her parents. She manages to be a spy, and she has someone. Cammie tries not to envy Bex; she's her friend and her partner-in-crime - but Bex has something that Cammie wants, something that she lost. It's hard not to be jealous.

Bex turns away from the window, and sees saw Cammie awake. She says something, and puts the phone away. Her first priority is always Cammie. Long strides took her beside Cammie, beside her as Bex had been all these years. She speaks quietly, doesn't properly mention Zach.

And maybe that Cammie's eyes had been telling the truth, that they hadn't been giving her what she wanted as she died.

That it hadn't been a dream.

That it had been Zach.

"Are you okay?" Bex asks. It seems like such a strange question. Are you okay? She's been asked that question so much, when she's hurt or heartbroken. And right now, she is so feeling much of both. She can feel the old emotions bubbling up inside her, hidden away for so long. And now she can't stop

them from consuming her, not like she used to be able to. Not with what had happened.

"Yes," she says, her voice level despite the emotions churning inside of her.

Bex smiles, but it's so painfully fake Cammie is almost disappointed. "You don't have to do this, you know," Bex says softly. Cammie pretends not to hear, because she's been pretending she's not broken for so long and she isn't going to stop now. She just answers simple questions, she tries not to think about the damn paperwork that comes next, and wonders how long it will be until the hole in her side goes away and she can get back to field work. Not thinking on him. Never thinking of him.

When Bex leaves, Cammie closes her eyes again. She hopes that it'll be morning when she opens them, to have the time pass by fast so she's not forced to face the thoughts swirling in her head. But the light that enters Cammie's cracked eyes are a dull grey, not white, the faint light from the curtain illuminating the room hopelessly.

* * *

_Setting fire to our insides for fun,_

_to distract our hearts from ever missing them._

* * *

"I've told you before that it's a bit creepy when you do that," Cammie croaks through the semi-darkness, voice hushed.

Zach pushes himself away from the wall, hands in his pockets, and moves to stand beside my bed, looking slightly uncomfortable. Cammie finally decides that she wasn't hallucinating, that he was really, actually there that night.

"How did you know where I was?" She asks softly.

He's still looking at her carefully when he shrugs and answers, "Liz. She thought you'd been too long, and she couldn't contact you, so..." He trails off. He doesn't ask her if she's okay, just sits awkwardly on the end of the bed. Cammie sit up further, almost amused by how uncomfortable he seems. It would probably be funnier if it wasn't for the ache in her side, Cammie thinks, or the fact that he'd suddenly turned up, after four years of nothing.

"Where were you?" she asks softly, barely more than a whisper.

He shakes his head. "It doesn't matter," he says. She would press him to tell her - if this was a few years ago, she would have made him tell me. She always hated his secrets - but there's a weariness to his voice that she understands, that makes her stay silent, accepting.

In the half-light, in the silence that wraps around them, her mind plays across four years in which she did nothing but work and forget about him. Working and trying to forget about him.

And hope.

Hope, somewhere, that this would happen. And yet, hope that it would never happen. That they'd stumble upon each other, but that they'd never have to see each other again. And to be perfectly honest, Cammie had no idea what she wanted in this moment, the conflicting emotions throwing her around like the waves of an ocean. All she knows is that there's a feeling in her chest that's nowhere near the bullet wound.

Maybe he feels the same, maybe he doesn't. Cammie never knew what the mysterious Zach was thinking, what was on his mind, what went through that head of his. (Actually she knew. She could read him like a book - like her favourite book - by the time they were over. They were broken, shattered, nothing - as individuals and as a couple, no matter how much she wished it was otherwise.)

She doesn't realize how far away he is until he moves next to her, his body warm and so familiar, her own body yearning for him like a drug. A drug more addictive, more curing than the ones pumped into her body.

It is silent, the ghosts of what they had surrounding them.

* * *

**disclaimer - i don't own gallagher girls. and the lyrics are _youth_ by daughter, which i don't own either.**

**a/n - thanks to my wonderful beta, frigonfic. and i wrote this about a month ago, so i can't actually remember if i like it. hope you do though.**


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